09 April 2013

Quill Jewelry Photo Addendum

What to feature in a photo addendum to last Friday’s post, Porcupine Quills, was a real sticking point for me.

I considered porcupine cuisine but wondered if it would become a prickly issue. Porcupine isn’t an overly common dish in the US--“Porcupine meatballs” are porcupine in name only--but the cooked rodent is quite popular in Southeast Asia. In fact, about a year after Pennsylvania began a hunting season on porcupine, the rules changed, limiting the take. There was rumor that porcupines were being shipped overseas.

And so I decided to go with examples of porcupine quill jewelry, much of which is produced by Native Americans or at least in Native American style. (I have no relationship with the vendors I’ve selected--as if I know anything about jewelry--and there are many, many others.)